Generally, the present invention relates to the field of communications employing recorded media. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system for maximizing communication effectiveness to a large number of persons while utilizing a limited quantity of communication devices.
The present invention recognizes that, for any particular person, the selection of specific information for presentation and the manner in which such information is actually offered and presented, greatly determines the effectiveness of the communicative effort. The present invention additionally recognizes that to maximize communication effectiveness to a large number of persons while utilizing a limited quantity of communication devices, the communication system must both be flexible as to: 1) how information is offered and presented as well as 2) capable of encompassing a broad range of information presentable at alternative levels of understanding or complexity. Accordingly, the present invention generally relates to a system and method for utilizing a limited number of communication devices to communicate effectively with a large number of persons having first, diverse communication interests and second, a wide range of skills in using typical communication devices and communication interfaces.
The prior art has offered many devices and methods for communicating with recorded media. For the last several years, traditional printed materials have become increasingly supplemented by electronic equivalent devices. For example, pleasure reading materials such as books and magazines, instructional materials such as textbooks and programmed textbooks, and reference materials such as dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias, have all been supplemented by electronic devices such as electronic books, electronic dictionaries, electronic translators, electronic spelling checkers, as well as general personal computers accessing CD-ROM databases.
Disadvantageously, these examples each tend to address a narrow application, e.g., dictionaries, spellers, and translators, or tend to be complex devices, e.g., powerful personal computers accessing large CD-ROM databases. Further, each of these devices offers limited alternatives in how information is communicated with a user, both in how the information is sought and how the information is displayed. Inexperienced users may be frustrated by the lack of an intuitive user interface, e.g., having to deal with a complex UNIX or a Windows 95 interface. Alternatively, more experienced users may be frustrated by not having direct access to command line programming, e.g., SQL querying of a database.
The disparate needs and capabilities of users may be especially great in places such as schools, libraries, and corporations, where attempting to address the broad range of user needs has resulted in amassing rooms of printed materials, numerous small specialty electronic devices, as well as investing in expensive, complex, and difficult-to-learn computers.